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English Honors Program

The English Honors Program is open to applicants who have shown exceptional ability in English. English Honors is designed to expand and intensify the academic experiences of advanced English majors through completion of a three-quarter, cohort-based, senior-year progam. The program builds a community of undergraduate scholars within the English Department, providing them with opportunities to work closely with UW professors in independent study and research, and with special events such as lectures and receptions.

2019-20 Honors Faculty

Laura Chrisman

Eva Cherniavsky

Tom Foster

Mark Patterson

2018-19 Honors Topics

Honors 2018-19: Poesis as Place

The term poesis describes the process of making. Derived from Ancient Greek, poesis names cultural or aesthetic activity that brings something into existence. This Honors sequence explores how poesis relates to place, in particular how various forms, media, and practices of cultural work create place as experience, environment, and territory. Each course will ask how poetry, novels, performances, or visual texts create a sense of place ranging across the personal and the political. Our focus will remain on the ways complex political, aesthetic, and epistemological issues are transacted through a poesis of place, or even poesis as place, to see how the contemporary world emerges from longer genealogies of cultural making. In keeping with this historical overview, several of our courses will disclose how a sense of place which seems objective, settled and inert can mutate dramatically over time in response to alternative styles of map-making, shifting political and social agendas, changes in aesthetics, and how these may compete with—and even seek to repress—various kinds of counter-memory. In totality, this quartet of courses reach back into the settler colonial origins of the U.S. and modernist U.K. nostalgia for a rural past through the diverse poetic and narrative experiments associated with late modernism and colonialism from the 1960s onward.

In “Haunted Landscapes: Sense of Place in Nineteenth-Century America,” Bob Abrams will examine sense of place in nineteenth-century U.S. literature and culture, including a look backward at the precariousness of sense of place at the troubled origins of British colonial America, initial collisions between white colonial and native tribal spatial imaginaries, and other ways in which sense of place remains unsettled throughout nineteenth-century American writing, cartography and painting. In her course “The ‘Shrinking Island’: Changing Responses to Place in 20th Century British Fiction,” Sydney Kaplan will turn to the sense of place created in early twentieth century British fiction, taking up such issues as nostalgia for ‘olde England’ amidst the realities of industrialization and its effect on the landscape, regionalism, and the dominance of the city. In “Triggering Town: The Poetics of Place in a Globalized World,” Frances McCue will engage the concept of the ‘trigging town,’ poet Richard Hugo’s name for places as method to help poets begin new poems, in order to consider shifting conditions of locality and globalization in post-1960s poems of North Cascadia. And in “Neverland: U.S. Empire and the Poesis of Displacement,” Gillian Harkins will explore post-1968 narrative forms generated in or about the United States, asking how experimental narratives about neo-colonial and imperial imaginaries of place-making transform the fictions of nationalized space.

2018-19 Honors Faculty

2017-18 Honors Faculty and Topics

Humanism and its Discontents

This honors sequence focuses on “Humanism and its Discontents.” Each seminar will explore the cultural production and political struggles that surround the category of “the human" and its many exclusions. All seminars will include engagement with theoretical and literary critical texts that offer ways of situating literature and other forms of cultural production in relation to changing historical and social conditions. Depending upon each seminar’s historical foci, course materials will reach back into the nineteenth century and forward into the twenty-first. Topics will include settler colonialism, racial slavery, genocide, imperialism, capitalism, sex/gender hierarchies, ecology, and regimes of sexual and bodily normalization.

Each seminar will be reading and writing intensive and will result in the production of a final research paper or related research based project. The honors course sequence seeks to provide students with the following skills, important to successful work in advanced literary and cultural studies:

*Ability to close read primary texts––literary, visual, and theoretical

*Ability to enter into constructive and confident discussion about course materials with one’s peers

*Ability to close read critical and philosophical texts and place them into conversation with each other

*Ability to close read cultural, political, literary, visual, and theoretical texts as primary sources that are in conversation across genres and idioms of expression

*Ability to summarize a text’s main claims and evaluate them critically

*Ability to formulate a distinct critical perspective of one’s own

*Ability to situate one’s own ideas and readings within larger critical and political conversations

*Ability to formulate in writing one’s intuitions and emergent ideas

*Ability to produce a coherent and complex argument in writing based on evidence and research

2017-18 Honors Faculty

2016-17 Honors Faculty and Topics

Topic: "Identities and Modernities"

For hundreds of years, anglophone literature has regularly and self-consciously reflected on its own "modernity." From the start, however, the relationship between identity and the modern has been vexed. What exactly does our "modernity" distinguish itself from: the traditional, the pre-industrial, the bucolic, the ancient, the religious, the medieval, the Utopian, the "primitive"? Such questions might show us the difficulty, even the speciousness, of such distinctions. Further, our conceptions of identity are framed via notions of "the modern," even when those notions are plural and global. We might say that the modern is a heuristic that enables certain literary discourses to take shape, the sine qua non of our literary and cultural endeavors.

The four honors courses in this sequence aspire to introduce students to different ways of conceiving of the intersection of identity and the modern. Our hope is that the courses will prove individually fruitful and dovetail with one another in productive ways.

2016-17 Honors Faculty

2015-16 Honors Faculty and Topics

Topic: "Adaptations"

Adaptation derives from the Latin adaptare, “to fit.” Adaptations enable a thing, person, organism, or idea to fit new or changing circumstances. In biological terms, adaptation refers to the process by which individual mutations enable organisms to fit better into their ecosystem, giving them a comparative advantage and thus ultimately leading to the ongoing evolution of species. Adaptation also occurs at the level of the individual, as we alter our behaviors, tastes, and expectations to fit the world around us. Adaptation also refers to the way that different cultures modify ideas, objects, and practices to fit their own, ever-changing, needs. New technologies arise by repurposing existing tools, or combining them in new ways that in turn create new possibilities that demand new innovations.

In literary terms, authors adapt their own experiences of the world into their work. They also adapt the work of others, playing with genre expectations, established storylines, familiar devices, and even familiar characters. No work of literature--for that matter, no cultural practice or species--is entirely new and original. Instead, all literature arises at least in part out of a process of adapting what has come before into new forms, new contexts, new meanings, and new purposes. Even individual works may be said to adapt, as they take on new meanings when read in context different from those in which they were written, while we speak explicitly of “adapting” books for the stage or the screen.

This year’s English Honors courses will explore the theme of “adaptation” as broadly construed in literary studies. Different courses will trace adaptations of form, of genre, or of specific works across diverse times periods and contexts. In the process, we will discuss the implications of considering adaptation as a process at once aesthetic, ecological, political, and cultural that enables us to think about the persistence and efficacy of literary and cultural practice, and the ways in which different periods, authors, nations, and traditions relate to one another.

2015-16 Honors Faculty

2014-15 Honors Faculty and Topics

"Form and Politics of Narrative"

How can narrative form and voice tell a story hidden behind the more apparent story? To what extent does the style of a genre have a particular politics? Do forms of narrative themselves have a history? What about narratives that break the boundaries of readers' expectations? How might form and politics affect the making of personal narratives? This year the four courses in our honors sequence will take up such questions with a focus on the form and politics of narrative in literature, film, and popular culture. We will cover a wide range of texts, both written and visual, in historical periods from the eighteenth century to the present.

The honors sequence will work to provide students with the following skills, important to successful work in literary and cultural study:

close or careful reading of primary textual evidence;

close or careful reading of critical academic prose;

ability to summarize the main claims of an academic essay;

ability to assess and respond to the main claims of an academic essay;

ability to situate oneself in a critical conversation;

ability to formulate a distinct critical perspective;

ability to create a logically coherent and complex thesis;

ability to develop a coherent and sustained argument to support that thesis.

2014-15 Honors Faculty

2013-14 Honors Faculty and Topics

"Literature and Politics "

This Honors sequence focuses on “literature and politics.” Each seminar will explore the relationship between cultural production and political struggle, with a specific focus on the role of literature. All honors seminars will include theoretical and literary critical texts that offer ways of situating literature in relation to changing historical and social conditions. Course materials will reach back into the nineteenth century and forward into the twenty-first. Topics include settler colonialism, slavery, genocide, imperialism, capitalism, sex/gender hierarchies, and regimes of sexual and bodily normalization. Each seminar will be writing intensive and will result in the production of a final research paper. The honors sequence will work to provide students with the following skills, important to successful work in literary and cultural study:

close or careful reading of primary textual evidence;

close or careful reading of critical academic prose;

ability to summarize the main claims of an academic essay;

ability to assess and respond to the main claims of an academic essay;

ability to situate oneself in a critical conversation;

ability to formulate a distinct critical perspective;

ability to create a logically coherent and complex thesis;

ability to develop a coherent and sustained argument to support that thesis.

Admission

Application to the English Honors Cohort is competitive. Applications are accepted annually after winter quarter grades have been posted, and are due Friday, April 20, 2018 by 4pm to the English Undergraduate Advising Office in PDL A2B to begin the program the following autumn. Space is limited. Meeting minimum eligibility requirements, or being a member of the College Honors Program, does not guarantee admission. Selection takes place through the competitive admission process, which includes the application form and a personal statement.

Students usually enter English Honors when they have Junior standing, with an average of 115-135 credits earned. A cohort of approximately 30 students will be admitted during spring quarter, and must complete the program in residence over autumn, winter, and spring quarters of the following academic year.

To be eligible for English Honors, all students must be declared English majors who apply in spring quarter for the following Autumn's English Honors cohort, and must have:

completed at least two quarters at the UW

completed at least 15 credits of UW English courses at the 200-level or above

completed ENGL 302, or be planning to complete it in Spring or Summer quarter, before beginning the Honors program in the Autumn

a minimum UW cumulative GPA of 3.3

a minimum UW English GPA of 3.7 (in courses at the 200-level and above) Students who fail to meet this GPA requirement but who feel that there are mitigating circumstances, such as having taken a group of exceptionally difficult courses or having undergone a period of personal difficulty resulting in a lowered GPA, may petition the department Director of Undergraduate Programs for special consideration.

at least three remaining quarters in residence at the UW: students in the Honors Program must take English honors courses on campus in Autumn, Winter, and Spring.

submitted an application form and a personal statement (no more than one page) that addresses these things:

what do you hope to gain by participating in the English Honors Program?

please describe a good learning experience you have had while pursuing the English major and discuss how it informed your decision to apply to Honors

Graduation

Students who successfully complete both the College Honors and the English Honors programs will be graduated With College Honors in English. Students successfully completing the English Department Honors program only will be graduated With Honors in English. These Honors are posted to the UW transcript. To graduate With Honors in English, students must complete all required English Honors courses and maintain a minimum UW cumulative GPA of 3.3 and UW English GPA of 3.7.

WARNING: Students who have not completed all Honors requirements by their scheduled graduation date must request that the graduation date be postponed if he or she still desires to graduate with Honors. Once the degree is posted, no changes can be made to the transcript, and Honors will be forfeited.

Requirements and Satisfactory Progress

English Honors course work consists of two honors seminars (ENGL 494), one taken in Autumn and one in Winter, followed by the writing of an honors thesis in the Spring (ENGL 496).

A total of four honors seminars are offered each year, two in Autumn and two in Winter, taught by a total of four faculty members. The four seminars are linked by a theme of question, to be decided on by the participating faculty. Examples of the broadest themes or questions include" "Literature of Empire"; "Textual Studies"; "Literature and Other Arts"; "What is Modernity?"; "What is Literary History?"

Two of the four honors faculty will elect to be available in the Spring to oversee the approximately 40 honors essays. (Students may also choose to work with other professors as well, either because of an existing mentoring relationship, or because of scholarly expertise. Students completing the creative writing pathway may also choose to do a creative project under the direction of an appropriate faculty member.) There will be a meeting time and room scheduled for the thesis course(s), though the supervising faculty are free to organize the course as they would like.

Honors course work may not be “doubled up,” nor may the courses be taken out of sequence, though Honors coursework may overlap with English major requirements where appropriate.

An add code for the following course in the Honors sequence will not be issued if there is an incomplete grade or failing grade on the student’s record for the previous Honors course. For example, if an “I” appears for ENGL 494 in Autumn Quarter, an add code for ENGL 494 for the upcoming Winter Quarter will not be issued until the incomplete grade is resolved. This may result in being shut out of a desired seminar or being dismissed from the program if the incomplete converts to a 0.0. If at any time after admission a student’s grades fall below these minimum standards, he or she will be dismissed from the program. Students who have been dropped for unsatisfactory scholarship may reapply for admission at a later date if minimum GPA requirements are attained. All second applications must be accompanied by a letter of petition and two letters of recommendation from English faculty.

Registration

Registration for English Honors courses is by add code only. Add codes may be obtained from Nancy Sisko in English Advising, A-2B Padelford. Add codes for honors couress are generally issued in person on a first-come, first-served basis on the first day of regular senior registration.

Applying Honors Courses to English Major Requirements

Honors courses may be applied to major requirements in a number of ways. Any Honors course may be used to satisfy English major elective requirements, although this works most efficiently for students following the major with an emphasis in literature. Any Honors Seminar, if defined appropriately, may be used to satisfy any requirement in the English major. For example, if the topic of one of your Senior Seminars is “Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group,” it is very likely that it satisfies a History of Language and Literature core requirement. Honors seminars may always be used as 400-level electives. For approval of Honors courses for specific requirements, consult the Honors Adviser, Nancy Sisko (PDL A-2-B).

Honors students will use ENGL 496 Major Conference for Honors as their 400-level senior capstone course.

ENGL 496: Major Conference for Honors

The Major Conference for Honors requires a thesis project, a substantive essay, usually 20-30 pages, but sometimes longer. Broadly speaking, the thesis is a complex piece of research-based literary analysis, criticism, theory, or other critical work related to English. Although most people choose literary topics, students are also welcome to do thesis work in English language study (linguistics), rhetoric and composition, cultural studies, film studies, and other emerging areas of the discipline. The Honors thesis should aspire to the level of a good graduate term paper. To approach this level of competence, it should have the following characteristics:

A clear, significant thesis that is fully developed, coherent, and free from major flaws in reasoning.

Arguments based on textual evidence and grounded in attentive close reading.

An engagement in the “critical conversation” that takes the essay beyond a competent close reading. Authoritative use of secondary sources that does not use the arguments of others in place of original thought or amount to nothing but a review of the criticism.

A clear and consistent critical perspective that reflects an awareness of theoretical concerns.

Effective organization that demonstrates purposefulness, a logical progression of thought, and rhetorical skill.

Faculty Supervision and Registration for ENGL 496

Two of the four faculty who teach Honors Seminars during the year will be available to suvervise the honors theses. A regular meeting time and room will be scheduled for the thesis course to meet. There are some occasions when working with another English faculty member makes sense. For example, if a student wishes to complete a thesis project in medieval studies, and already has a strong mentoring relationship with Professor Remley, and he has agreed to work with that student independently, that student must provide a written intellectual justification to The Director of Undergraduate Programs (jesse Oak Taylor). If Professor Taylor approves the proposal, the student will be asked to submit an approval form with Professor Remely's signature. The student will work with Professor Remley on the content of the thesis, but WILL STILL BE REQUIRED TO REGISTER FOR AND ATTEND ONE OF THE SECTIONS OF ENGL 496, Major Conference for Honors. ENGL 496 is designed to cover critical aspects of the research process. The proposal, abstract, outline, annotated bibliography, etc. It is also designed to provide Honors students with an audience of their peers for developing their research, providing students with an opportunity to workshop their research with their peers.

The Value of English Honors

Before deciding to embark on English Honors, many students want to know what benefits the program confers. Naturally, successful completion of departmental honors means receiving an impressive additional credential. Particularly for students applying to graduate or professional school, graduating With Honors in English puts another attractive line on the curriculum vitae. However, this should not be the sole motivation for entering the Honors program, nor is it the most significant benefit.

Building community: The Honors Program is a means for students to build community within one of the largest and most diverse departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. Honors students inevitably share the common characteristics of active intellectual engagement, curiosity and a willingness to explore new topics and perspectives, and a strong belief in the intrinsic value of scholarship in our discipline. One of the goals of Honors is learning how to work effectively within a community of scholars, how to engage in a critical conversation with one's peers, how to negotiate a multiplicity of perspectives and intelligently stake out intellectual commitments. Honors should provide a more intimate "home" within the larger, vaguer framework of our rather ungainly major. By bringing 40 students together into a cohort and giving them multiple opportunities to meet and work together and with the 4-person faculty team, we hope that a strong sense of community will emerge.

Program coherence: The Honors program provides a coherent and cumulative program of study for students by focusing them on a defined area of inquiry or debate. Because the content and concerns of the honors courses are coordinated, students should build a strong sense of a topic or issue. By the end of the year, students should have a firm understanding of what it means to carry on a sustained conversation, to push the lines of inquiry to a new kind of depth and sophistication, and to appreciate questions from a multiplicity of critical perspectives. The topic of the Honors program in any given year will be defined in broad enough terms that every student will find an appealing point of entry rather than feeling as if they're being forced to study a narrow subject.

Graduate School preparation: Although Honors can be of great value to any English major, the program is particularly beneficial to prospective graduate students. The advanced skills described above are precisely those needed by applicants to graduate and professional school. Honors also puts students in an ideal position to fulfill the requirements of a successful graduate school application. Strong letters of recommendation are sometimes difficult for UW students to get, even if they are intellectually gifted, because their professors simply don’t know them well enough. Two quarters of seminar work and a term of intensive independent study means that faculty members get a very clear, detailed picture of their students’ abilities and accomplishments. This can translate into the effective letters of recommendation. Most graduate programs in English also require a critical writing sample, an essay of 12-20 pages, that is an extremely important part of the application. The Honors Program provides ample opportunities for producing essays suitable for use as a critical writing sample.

Students hoping to complete graduate degrees in English sometimes ask if it is “necessary” to do English Honors to be competitive. The answer to this question is: No. Many eligible students have compelling reasons for choosing not to participate in the program. Talent reveals itself in numerous ways to graduate admissions committees. The absence of Honors course work on the transcript will not damage the prospects of a student with a clear record of academic excellence.

Other Honors

English Honors students are frequently eligible for other categories of honors at the UW. However, one type of honor does not necessarily imply the others. It is important to distinguish English Honors from

University Honors

University Honors is an umbrella term to designate all UW Honors programs. For a thorough explanation of the three different tracks in Honors-- Interdisciplinary Honors (core curriculum), Departmental Honors, and College Honors (combination of Interdisciplinary and Departmental Honors), please go to the University of Washington Honors Program web page,

High Scholarship Recognition

The following forms of recognition are awarded to first baccalaureate degree, matriculated students in residence. Undergraduate students in all colleges of the University are eligible regardless of membership in the Honors Program.

Quarterly Dean’s List: A high scholarship notation is made on the transcript of each undergraduate student who attains a quarterly GPA of at least 3.50 for 12 UW graded credits. “Dean’s List” is entered on the line below the quarter’s courses on the transcript and a congratulatory letter is sent from the dean of the student’s home school or college.

Annual Dean’s List: The following undergraduates receive yearly high scholarship recognition in the form of a certificate:

Undergraduates who have attended three quarters of the academic year (Summer through Spring) and who have achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.50 or higher in at least 12 graded credits in each of the three quarters.

Undergraduates who have attended the University for four quarters of the school year (Summer through Spring) with a 3.50 or higher GPA in 12 or more graded credits in each of three quarters, and a cumulative GPA of 3.50 for the four quarters combined.

Such students are recognized by the notation “Annual Dean’s List” following the last quarter’s grades for the year, and by a certificate of recognition from the dean of the student’s home school or college.

Baccalaureate Honors

Baccalaureate honors (summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude) are awarded at graduation based on GPA and other factors (see the Registrar's Office website for criteria). The University’s Faculty Council on Academic Standards Honors Subcommittee determines annually the proportions of the graduating class to receive baccalaureate honors. GPAs are then determined by the Committee and the Registrar's Office to yield the specified proportions within each undergraduate college. University minimum GPAs are specified for each baccalaureate honors level, and college GPA minima must at least equal annually stipulated University minima. (For the most recent GPA requirements for the Seattle campus, see http://www.washington.edu/students/reg/HonorsReqS.html.)

Medals

Freshman Medal. Annually, the sophomore having the most distinguished academic record for the first year of his or her program receives the freshman medal. The notation "Freshman Medalist" is made on the transcript. Selection is based primarily on GPA, but the rigor and quality of the student's program are also considered. Only students who have earned 36 or more graded credits in residence at the UW will be considered for this honor.

Sophomore and Junior Medals. Annually, the junior having the most distinguished academic record for the first two years of his or her program receives the sophomore medal. The senior having the most distinguished academic record for the first three years of his or her program receives the junior medal. The notation "Sophomore Medalist" or "Junior Medalist" is made on the transcript. Selection is based primarily on GPA, but the rigor and quality of the student's program are also considered. Only students who have earned 40 or more graded credits in residence at the UW will be considered for these honors.

President's Medal. The President's Medal, which is conferred at commencement, recognizes the graduating senior who has the most distinguished academic record. Only students who have earned at least 90 credits at the UW may be considered. The notation "President's Medalist" is made on the transcript, under the name of the degree awarded.

Phi Beta Kappa

Phi Beta Kappa is a national honorary organization whose purpose is to recognize and honor students with excellent undergraduate academic records. Requirements for election are established by each local chapter. The requirements are meant to ensure that members have had a quality liberal education; at the UW students in all colleges are welcomed if they meet these standards.

Election: Students do not apply to Phi Beta Kappa. Instead, the Registrar’s Office provides the UW chapter with the transcripts of all students who meet the credit and GPA requirements. The chapter then determines whether the general education and upper-division breadth requirements are met. If so, the student is mailed an offer of election.

Golden Key National Honor Society

Golden Key is a national interdisciplinary academic honors organization whose purpose is to recognize and encourage scholastic achievement in all undergraduate fields of study. Golden Key seeks to bring together undergraduates, college faculty, and administrators in developing and maintaining high standards of education and in promoting voluntary service to school and community.

Election: Students are normally invited into Golden Key each Fall quarter on the basis of meeting credit and class rank criteria. At other times, students who have subsequently become eligible may contact the UW Golden Key chapter office for information.

Sigma Tau Delta

Members of the UW chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, an international English honor society, note that the society's purpose is to "confer distinction upon students of the English language and literature, while also providing an opportunity to create a sense of community in the department."